Perspective in Little Tibet

Christians who flock to Jerusalem or Buddhists to Varanasi or Elvis fans to his birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi, these are people who I used to not get.

Spatial proximity to an idol or sacred location, I thought, was totally irrelevant, if it's not directly connected to some advice, instruction, or at least entertainment. It's just a little emotional lift, like eating a hot chili pepper but more expensive.

Waiting for the Dalai Lama

I suppose I've come to acknowledge some sort of strange magic in it, in proximity.

When I first saw my own idol, Slash, he played live and transformed before my eyes from a Guitar-God forged of pure Awesomeness into a talented flesh and blood human--probably somebody who spent many hours practicing alone in a room, like me.   

Likewise, a week ago, when I saw the Dalai Lama drive by in his car, escorted by police and welcomed by a crowd of deep-bowing, well-wishers and clouds of incense, he transformed from a fuzzy concept in my head into some dude in a car who attracted a lot of friggin attention.  

A pretty crappy picture of the Dalai Lama, seated on the far left.

Of course, I'd previously been aware of his being a religious celebrity but I suddenly had the burning question: Why him and not this monk to the left who stood waiting in the cold to catch a glimpse? He looks like he could use a little attention.

What makes the man in the car into THE DALAI FRIGGIN LAMA? 

Well, it's really an interesting story that stretches the boundaries of plausibility for most western minds, I think.

Here's one thread of this wooly narrative:

Once upon a time (2500 years ago) there was a warrior prince in India, a land where people were divided by caste and the prince was of the highest. He was, from birth, groomed to lead combat and live in opulence.  But, as he matured into young adulthood, he traveled his land and was devastated by the suffering of the lower castes that his palace existence had sheltered him from. 

He renounced his wealth and wandered his land trying many spiritual practices, including the most ascetic. But the suffering in his heart remained.  He finally sat himself beneath a Bodhi tree, waiting, concentrating on compassion, feeding on insects and leaves, until one day, he was Enlightened.

This man, whose name was Siddhartha, was given the title Buddha. And he gave sermons to spread his teachings. And his teachings became known as Dharma.

Included in Dharma is the doctrine of reincarnation and karma: life follows death follows life follows death, ad infinitum.  Karma, constituted by the life-time actions of a sentient being, dictates--sort of as a natural law, like gravity--what life form you will take after you die.

During one's lifetime(s), spiritual tasks, rituals, prayers and deeds might lead one eventually to Enlightenment, which frees one from karma, from desire, from suffering, and therefore from the chain of endless rebirth.

However, an Enlightened being does not selfishly rejoice; rather s/he chooses to be reborn into the material world of suffering beings after his/her death. S/he does this with the sole purpose of bringing others to Enlightenment. Such beings are called Bodhisattvas of Compassion--Enlightened beings willfully reincarnated into our world to annihilate our karma--and they live among us in this story.

About a thousand years after the Buddha achieved his Enlightenment, there was a man named Songtsen Gampo who ruled Tibet, which was a warring nation that had claimed much territory, including large areas of China (ironically), Nepal and Mongolia. In the 7th century, this Tibetan King took two wives, one from Nepal and the other from China. Both wives were Buddhist and began planting the seeds of Dharma within him, and the seeds germinated in the government, eventually taking root in the whole country. Temples were built, scholars were invited, Buddhist education was implemented, and the warring nation of Tibet put down its swords and became peaceful.

As these Buddhist schools became increasingly developed and the monks more judicious in their studies and determined in their spiritual pursuit, an epiphany occurred to them. Likely their dead ancestors--also having been highly evolved spiritual monks and scholars and certainly Bodhisattvas--must be choosing to reincarnate around them as humans, to further the teaching of Dharma.  Thus began, around the great Tibetan schools of Buddhism, the idea of a 'tulku', a Buddhist teacher (that is, a 'lama') who, after dying, reincarnates into a human form again in Tibet to Enlighten students of Dharam. Thus, when one tulku died, a search began for the reincarnation within relative close proximity (there's that magical proximity, again); the search includes oracular consultations, and identifying the tulku by careful study of the behavior of young candidates born shortly after the tulku's death. Upon identification, this child would inherit all he had accumulated in his previous life.

Among the many great schools and temples was one called the Gelug school of Buddhism, founded in the late 1300's ~ early 1400's by one of the greatest Tibetan Buddhist scholars, Je Tsongkhapa. This was the most important of all schools.The head "lama" (teacher of Buddhist doctrine) of this school was a spiritual leader for Tibet. When the head of this school, who also was a tulku, died, a search began for his reincarnation. They found him, and he became the 2nd 'head lama' of the great Gelug school.

The 3rd head lama of this school was a highly evolved monk named Sonam Gyatso among whose achievements was his teaching the Mongolian King about Buddhism, and thus converting the Mongol. Gyatso means 'ocean', which in Mongolian is 'dalai'. Hence the title "Dalai Lama", which from then on was reserved for the head of this influential Buddhist school.  The title was then applied, retrospectively, to the two former lamas.  So Sonam Gyatso was the third "Dalai Lama", a title reserved for just one being, reincarnated over and over again for the sole reason of annihilating karma.

The 5th Dalia Lama,Lopsang Gyatso, became--in addition to Tibet's spiritual leader--also the administrative ruler, and the chief political administrators of Tibet, from the 17th century onward, have been the Dalai Lama, and the commoners have happily been led him and the monks ever since.
After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, the 14th Dalai Lama was finally located--after 4 years of searching--in the East of Tibet as a young babe living at a modest mountain farm. During the lifetime of this Dalai Lama in the mid 20th century, a neighboring country called China, quickly becoming a global superpower, producer of knick-knacks and complete worldwide asshole, claimed Tibet as one of its territories. The peace-loving Dalai Lama tried to accommodate their new master, but the brutal tyrant used torture, imprisonment, genocide and propaganda in a (failed) effort to secularize the Tibetan people into a materially productive hive of consumer/worker drones.  With lives threatened, the Dalai Lama and many others were forced to escape into India, into exile, back to the same nation where Buddhism had begun, with Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. There, they began to re-establish their temples, schools, medical clinics and government in various areas of India, particularly in Dharamsala, mountainous as it was an thus, reminiscent of their stolen home, Tibet.  

Among the tasks of the 14th Dalai Lama is spreading not only Dharma, but also furthering the cause of freeing Tibet, now a police state with a quickly deteriorating environment, from Chinese rule. But despite his busy schedules, he regularly returns to his people and residence in Dharamsala, India, to give teachings. One spring in the early 21st century, on route to his residence in exile, this Dalai Lama was driven within a certain proximity of a person who wrote a long-winded blog about it.